The present invention relates to a modular communication system that monitors railcar movement along a train line.
Rail is an important method of transporting goods and people to and from populated areas. Rail is often used to ship goods in bulk over long distances in specialized container cars. Due to the variety of different types of goods which can be shipped by rail, a variety of different types of rail cars are often used to carry different types of goods. For example, perishable food items are often transported in refrigerated rail cars, whereas liquified gases are often carried in pressurized liquid container cars. In order to maximize the cost effectiveness of shipping cargo by rail, an individual train may consist of several engines linked to multiple rail cars. Indeed, a train may comprise literally hundreds of different types of cars carrying different types of goods, destined for different destinations. When a train enters a rail yard, several cars may be removed from the train while other cars are added to it, depending on the ultimate destination of the particular rail cars. Hence, the particular composition of a train will change as it moves from rail yard to rail yard. In many cases, a particular cargo item will be placed on a rail car which is assembled into a first train which leaves its departure point in one city. Before that cargo item reaches its ultimate destination in another city, the rail car on which that cargo item rode, may have been part of two or more separate trains. Likewise, the exact composition of a train may vary considerably from rail yard to rail yard as rail cars are removed and additional rail cars are added.
Since different rail cars on a train may have different points of departure and different destinations, it becomes vitally important to keep an accurate track of the different cars comprising a train. Traditionally, each rail car has an identification tag which has information concerning that car, including its point of departure, its destination and/or its cargo. To keep track of where particular rail cars are, an operator must first identify each rail car by reading the rail car tags. This can be a time consuming operation. In recent years, rail car tags have been developed which can be read by a wayside computerized optical card reader. In practice, however, since rail cars are being transferred at various customer locations along the track, the composition of the train as it travels from customer location to customer location is very difficult to trace.
Keeping track of the location of particular rail cars has also been a problem since rail car tags are generally read when the cars enter and leave a rail yard. Hence, it was only when the rail car was in a rail yard that the precise location of the car could be determined. While automatic wayside rail car tag readers may be used, cost limits their use to a few locations. Customers and/or rail way personnel had no practical method to determine the exact location of particular rail cars when the rail cars were in transit. Since a train may travel literally hundreds of miles from tag reader to tag reader, it is difficult for a rail company to know precisely where any particular shipment may be. As a result, it is very difficult for customers who are having cargo shipped by rail to determine with confidence where their cargo is, and what the expected time of delivery will be for the cargo.
The present invention overcomes the drawbacks of the prior art by providing a method of monitoring the progress of rail cars linked together in a train. The method comprises the steps of creating a wheel count and a location point for the train by counting the number of wheels on the train in sequential order as the train passes a first wheel counting station having a known location, the location point corresponding the location of the first wheel counting station. The wheel count and location point are then recorded in a computer. The train is then identified as the train passes subsequent wheel counting stations positioned along the track by recounting the wheels on the train and matching the number of recounted train wheels to the wheel count, each of said wheel counting stations having a known location. The location point in the computer is then updated when the train is identified to correspond to the location of the last wheel counting station to count the number of wheels on the train. Then a rail car location is created in the computer, the rail car location corresponding to the last updated location point for the train.
The present invention also directed at a system for determining the real time location of wheeled rail cars linked together in a train travelling on a fixed track. The system includes a plurality of wheel counting stations positioned along the track, the wheel counting stations each adapted to accurately count the wheels of the train as the train passes the station to create a wheel count for the train, the wheel count corresponding to the total number of wheels counted by the wheel counting station, each wheel counting station having a known location. The wheel counting stations are each adapted to transmit an information signal to a first computer operatively coupled to the wheel counting stations when the train passes the stations, said information signal including the wheel count for the train and location information corresponding to the location of the wheel counting station generating the wheel count. The first computer is adapted to store the wheel count and location information in a memory module. The first computer is also adapted to identify the train when it passes a wheel counting station by matching the number of wheels counted by said wheel counting station to the wheel count for the train. The first computer is further adapted to generate a location point corresponding to the location of the last wheel counting station to count the number of wheels on the train. Also, the first computer is adapted to create a rail car location corresponding to the location point.
The invention is also directed to a system for minimizing the distance between trains travelling on a fixed track, the trains each having a plurality of wheels. The system includes a plurality of wheel counting stations positioned along the track. The wheel counting stations are each adapted to accurately count the wheels of each train as the train passes the station and generate a wheel count for each train corresponding to the number of wheels on the train counted by the wheel counting station, each wheel counting station having a known location. The wheel counting stations are adapted to transmit an information signal to a remote computer operatively coupled to the wheel counting stations when the trains pass the stations, said information signal including the wheel count for each train and location information corresponding to the location of the wheel counting station generating the wheel count. The first computer is adapted to store the wheel count and location information for each train. The first computer is further adapted to identify each train when they pass a wheel counting station by matching the number of wheels counted by said wheel counting station to the wheel count for the respective trains. The first computer is further adapted to generate and store a location point for each train corresponding to the location of the last wheel counting station to count the number of wheels on the train. The wheel counting stations are also adapted to measure the speed and direction of the wheels and record the time the wheels were counted for each train. Each of the wheel counting stations are also adapted to transmit the speed, direction and time for each train to the first computer. The first computer has a computer program adapted to calculate and store the estimated size of each train from the respective wheel counts of each train. The computer program is adapted to calculate a minimum safe stopping distance for each train from the respective size of the trains, the recorded times the trains have passed the same wheel counting stations, and the respective speed and direction of the trains recorded when the trains passed said same counting stations.